All My Apes Gone — So Too Your Dreams of Blockchain Revolution

It’s always the human factor. It’s a tiny thing, an ‘immutable’ force destroying utopian dreams. Whenever we are told about revolutionary technology, where security is built into the tech itself, the ‘human factor’ comes along and teaches us the same ol’ lesson: Technology can only be as secure as the people using it. Here’s a new entry. Earlier this week, hackers forced their way into the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) Instagram account and Discord Server to steal millions of dollars’ worth of NFTs and cryptocurrency. NFTs, which are non-fungible, were designed to make collecting art possible in the digital world. It quickly devolved into a frenzy of mass-produced PNGs that created a billion-dollar bubble. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is perhaps the most famous minter of NFTs, creating <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/bayc-bored-ape-yacht-club-nft-interview-1250461/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">a series of ready-made images depicting chimps, which are often used as digital avatars on Twitter and sell for millions of dollars</a>. As with most things in the land of cryptocurrency, one (as of yet unfulfilled) promise with NFTs is that they offer inherent security — above and beyond that of physical art. This is because, as crypto enthusiasts argue, transactions on the blockchain cannot be faked. <a href="https://medium.com/@sean.donovan/all-my-apes-gone-so-too-your-dreams-of-blockchain-revolution-b5386669c312">Learn More</a>